


The Phantom Hiker

by eternaleponine



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Camping, Clextober 2019, F/F, Scary Stories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-23
Updated: 2019-10-23
Packaged: 2020-12-31 20:13:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21151547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eternaleponine/pseuds/eternaleponine
Summary: Clarke, Raven, and Octavia go on a camping trip to get away from the stress of their lives for a weekend.  Octavia decides they should tell scary stories, and she swears hers is absolutely true, and it happened in these very woods.  Clarke doesn't want to believe her, but...For Clextober 2019 - Day 9 - Scary Stories





	The Phantom Hiker

"It was a dark and stormy night," Clarke intoned, leaning in to make sure her face was caught in the fire's glow. "Three girls sat around a campfire. One girl said, 'Hey Clarke, tell us a story.' And this is the story that Clarke told: 'It was a dark and stormy night. Three girls—'"

Raven started to laugh. "You're such an ass," she said. 

Octavia didn't look quite so amused. "Come on, Clarke," she said. "You have to know some _good_ scary stories. Aren't there, like, ghosts haunting the hospital or something? Patients who died there who can't let go? Disgruntled nurses out for revenge? Serial killer doctors who—"

"If you've got such a great imagination, _you_ tell the story," Clarke said, regretting the words as soon as she saw the smug smile on Octavia's face. 

"Okay," Octavia said, "but I don't need imagination for this one, because it's completely true."

Clarke shivered. She doubted whatever yarn Octavia was about to spin was actually completely true... but there was a reason Clarke didn't like scary stories. It wasn't that she thought they were stupid, or implausible. It wasn't because she didn't believe in ghosts or spirits (werewolves and vampires were a harder sell) but because she did. Energy couldn't be created or destroyed, after all, so whatever it was that animated a person while they were alive had to go somewhere when they ceased to be... and most of the time that was worm food, but... 

The problem with scary stories was that it was all too easy for Clarke to imagine that somewhere along the line, there had been at least a kernel of truth to them, and her mind would latch on to whatever part of the story seemed most plausible and spin out... especially when out in the woods in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by trees so dense it was hard to find a patch of sky big enough to see the stars. And then when you did, there were so many of them – _too_ many of them – and Clarke was reminded how insignificant she was, in the grand scheme of things. How if something happened to her out here, it might be days, or weeks, or never, before she was found. 

She shivered again, and opened her mouth to tell Octavia to forget it, she wasn't in the mood, they had come out here to get away from drama and freaking themselves out wasn't the way to get her to relax and decompress, but Octavia beat her to the punch.

"It wasn't a dark and stormy night," Octavia said. "It was a clear night like this one, with the moon high in the sky and an autumn chill in the air. A group of friends came out for one last hurrah before it got too cold to camp. They were college kids, and with midterms looming, they needed a break from the stress of classes and studying and everything else." 

Clarke swallowed; the situation sounded all too familiar. She was finally past all that, but the pressure of being an intern at one of the most prestigious hospitals in the country could get pretty crushing, especially when you were the daughter of one of most brilliant surgeons in the world. Clarke didn't want to be a surgeon – she didn't need that kind of pressure – and there were days when she seriously considered changing her name and starting over somewhere where she could be anyone but Dr. Abby Griffin's daughter. But her name opened doors for her, and she would be a fool to give that up, even if it meant she carried the weight of the world's expectations on her shoulders all the time.

"There was probably alcohol involved – they were college students, after all – but they didn't get wild and crazy, they weren't out of control. They drank enough to get loose, to relax, and they settled in to have a good time. Which eventually led to a few of them disappearing into tents together, and those that stayed around the fire joked and laughed about what sort of supernatural creatures might make the sounds coming from inside." 

"God, I wish," Raven said. "As long as they were gone by morning." She rolled her eyes. She was the one who had wanted this trip – insisted on it, really – because she needed to shake off her latest in a string of failed relationships... if they could even be called that. Mostly they seemed to be hook-ups with guys who were nowhere near good enough for Raven, who then got clingy – because let's face it, Raven was awesome, and who _wouldn't_ want a piece of that? – and didn't want to take no for an answer. 

Octavia rolled her eyes and pressed on. "Finally it got late, and the tents got quiet, and they doused the fire and went to sleep. But all that alcohol was going to catch up to them eventually, right? So in the middle of the night, one of the girls got out of her tent and wandered into the woods to pee. Trouble was, she forgot a flashlight, and without the light of the fire to guide her back, she became disoriented and wandered farther and farther from camp."

Clarke set down the drink she'd just been about to take a sip of – it was only water, but she suddenly wasn't so thirsty anymore – and wrapped her arms around herself, pretty sure she knew where this was going, and she didn't want to hear it, but there was no stopping Octavia now.

"Her friends didn't realize she was gone until morning. They went looking for her, calling her name, getting more and more anxious as minutes, then hours passed." Octavia leaned in, looking back and forth between them. "They say it was her girlfriend who found her, sprawled in the bottom of a ravine, pale except for the pool of blood from where her head had cracked against a rock. She started to scream, and that brought the rest of the group to her. They called for help, and the body was taken from the woods... but the girl? She never left.

"Ever since that day, that night, campers who come into these woods in the fall have reported seeing a girl wandering through the trees, haunting the ravine where she died, calling out for her friends, her girlfriend, anyone who might listen, begging them to find her and bring her home." 

Silence, and then Raven snorted. "That's it?" she asked. "_That's_ your scary story? A sad college girl ghost wandering the woods?" 

Octavia shrugged. "Maybe I should have mentioned that it was _these_ woods," she said, "and her friends were camped right near here."

"You're just saying that," Raven said.

"Look it up!" Octavia said. "It wasn't even that long ago!"

Raven pulled her phone out of her pocket, but even with the improvements she'd made to an otherwise ordinary phone, she wasn't able to get a signal. "Whatever," she said. "Not scary."

"I think Clarke would beg to differ," Octavia said, her tone teasing. 

"It's not scary," Clarke said. "It's sad. And I'm going to bed." 

"Spoilsport," Raven said, but didn't try to stop her. 

Clarke crawled into her tent, zipping it shut behind her and wishing that more than a thin layer of nylon stood between her and the oppressive dark, and the murmurs of her friends' voices that were now engaged in a battle to tell the scariest stories they knew. Clarke kicked off her boots and crawled into her sleeping bag still fully dressed, pulling it up over her head until her own caught breath made it feel clammy and claustrophobic. She kept her eyes mashed shut, willing herself to sleep.

When she woke, it was quiet. Raven and Octavia had gone to bed. Clarke tried to check her phone to see what time it was, but somewhere between when she'd gone to bed and now, the battery had drained. She'd forgotten to plug it into the battery she'd brought, and now it was too dark to find it. She sighed and pulled her sleeping bag tighter around herself, trying to ignore the pressure in her bladder and go back to sleep... only to give it up as a lost cause a few minutes later. 

She cursed every medical textbook she'd ever read that outlined all the things that could happen to a body if it got too dehydrated as she crawled out of her tent and into the night. 

"You don't have to go far," she whispered to herself. "Just far enough that no one will step in it in the morning." And far enough it wouldn't attract animals... if that was a thing. Was that a thing? Or were they just attracted to food? Probably better not to take chances. 

She realized she should have brought a flashlight, but then remembered that she didn't _have_ a flashlight; she'd assumed she would be able to rely on the one on her phone for her nighttime lighting needs. She sighed and moved from tree to tree, trying to keep count of how many she'd passed, and whether she'd had to zig or zag to avoid running face-first into them. Finally, she found a place that seemed far enough away from camp, and she eased down her pants and squatted, wishing for the first time that she was a boy. (Or maybe not the first time, but the other times had had more to do with the systematic oppression and devaluation of women, not ease of managing bodily functions in the wild.)

She stood up, relieved that not only was her bladder now empty, but also that she'd managed not to pee on her own shoes, and tugged her pants back into place... and realized she couldn't remember exactly which direction she'd come from. Had she squatted while facing the direction that would take her back to camp, or had she gone around to the back of the tree? And if she had, had it been a full 180, or had she only gone partway? 

Her heart thudding, Clarke took a step in what she thought was the right direction... only to freeze as she second-guessed herself. If she went the wrong way, she could end up like the girl in the story. Not wandering the woods forever, but with her skull smashed on a rock, and—

Clarke forced herself not to think about it. Instead, she mentally retraced her steps, her eyes shut tight as she tried to _feel_ the path she'd taken through the dark. How many trees had it been? Thirteen? Fifteen? Damn it, she hadn't wanted to go camping in the first place! She pressed her back against the rough bark of the tree behind her, wondering if maybe it would be better to just stay where she was and wait 'til morning when she could see. It couldn't be _that_ far away, could it?

But she hadn't grabbed her jacket, and those same medical textbooks now reminded her of the symptoms of hypothermia, and how quickly a person could die under the right – or wrong – conditions. She hugged herself and took another step, then another, sending hopeless, desperate prayers into the universe that she was somehow going the right way.

A branch snapped, and Clarke jerked to look in the direction she thought the sound had come from, even though seeing anything in the dense darkness was about as likely as—

Her breath caught in her throat, which clamped down on the scream that rose up as she realized that she wasn't alone. There in the distance – but too close for comfort – was a pale figure, human-shaped but hazy... and it was coming toward her. 

So Clarke did what any rational person would do when approached by an unknown entity in the woods in the middle of the night: she ran.

"Wait!" a voice called, quiet, intense, and ghosts didn't talk, did they? They didn't tell you to wait. But Clarke kept running, slipping and skidding on fallen leaves and pine needles, tripping over roots and crashing to the ground, picking herself back up and continuing in as straight a line as she could even though she didn't know where that line might take her. 

"Stop!" the voice called again. "Please! Stop or—"

Ghosts didn't say please... but serial killers might. Only the voice was female, and the likelihood of a female serial killer was extremely slim, historically speaking, but maybe she was just a regular killer, or—

Or what? Stop or what? What was she trying to warn Clarke about? 'Stop or I'll shoot'? Had Clarke wandered onto someone else's property? But maybe it wasn't anything sinister. Maybe she wasn't trying to hurt Clarke. Maybe she was trying to protect her. Maybe—

The thought was cut short as one of Clarke's feet slipped, plunging down a slope she hadn't seen in front of her, and her arms pinwheeled wildly as she tried to catch her balance, but it was too late, she was sliding, tumbling down into the ravine that had appeared out of nowhere, and she brought her arms up to protect her head as she rolled and finally hit the bottom, icy water instantly soaking through her clothing.

"No no no no no no!" Clarke looked up to see the pale figure skidding to a halt at the lip of the ravine. "Are you okay?" she called. "Please, please tell me you're—"

"I'm okay," Clarke gasped, her breath wheezing in her lungs when she was finally able to drag air into them again. She sat up, then stood, pulling herself out of the water and onto the bank. "Just wet."

"Hold on," the voice said, and Clarke watched as she carefully picked her way down, grabbing on to rocks and roots to keep herself from meeting Clarke's same fate. She stopped a few yards away from Clarke. "Are you sure you're okay?" she asked, her breath coming in visible puffs in the cold air. 

Clarke nodded. "I'll probably have some pretty spectacular bruises in the morning, but..." She shrugged. 

The girl – woman, from what Clarke could see they were probably around the same age, give or take a few years – held out her hand. "Let me help you."

Clarke hesitated, then realized there was no point, because even if this woman meant her harm, now that she was cold and wet instead of just cold, there was basically no chance of her making it through the night out here by herself. _Damned if you do, damned if you don't,_ she thought, and took her hand.

Together, they made their way back up the slope, and collapsed at the top to catch their breath. "Thanks," Clarke managed, still gripping the hand that had pulled her up the last few feet when her limbs started shaking so badly she could barely climb.

"Where's your camp?" the woman asked. "I'll take you—"

"If I knew that, I would be there," Clarke said. "I got turned around, and—"

She gave a curt nod. "This way, then." She stood up, hauling Clarke with her. Clarke stumbled and crashed into her, and the woman's arms closed around her, steadying her. Clarke looked up into eyes made silvery by the dark and found it almost impossible to look away. "This way," she said again, and Clarke followed on feet that felt more and more like blocks of ice with every step.

"Let me get you some dry clothes," she said when they arrived back at her campsite. She disappeared into her tent, coming out again a few minutes later. "I laid everything out," she said. "And here's some hot cocoa." She held out a thermos, and Clarke's hands shook as her fingers wrapped around it. 

"Spiked, I hope," Clarke said, fumbling as she tried to unscrew the lid. 

The woman took it back, doing what Clarke hadn't managed with long, deft fingers. She poured some into the lid that doubled as a cup and handed it back to Clarke. "Sorry," she said. "I don't drink. Anyway, alcohol might make you feel warmer in the moment, but—"

"I know," Clarke said, her lips jerking into an almost smile. "It's okay." She sipped the cocoa, which was at exactly the right temperature to drink, and her eyes fluttered shut as the sweet taste filled her mouth and warmth filled her belly. "Thank you."

"You should change," the woman said. "I'll wait out here. Build up the fire."

"You don't have to," Clarke said. The woman looked at her, and Clarke felt what little body heat she had left rushing to her cheeks. "The fire, I mean," she said. "Dry clothes and a sleeping bag—" She stopped, realizing there was no reason for this woman to have a spare sleeping bag if she was out here camping on her own, and if Clarke took it... "I don't mind sharing," she added, then realized it should be this woman saying that, not her. It wasn't hers to share. 

It was hard to tell when there was so little light, but she thought that the shade of gray that colored her face might have grown just a shade or two darker. "Okay," she said. "If you need anything..."

Clarke shook her head and ducked into the tent, where a lantern had been left so she could see the clothing spread out on the air mattress. She quickly stripped out of her wet clothing, but hesitated to put on this stranger's clothes, even though she knew she needed to. It just felt way too intimate when they didn't even know each other's names. 

"I'm Clarke, by the way," she said, hoping it would carry through the thin walls of the tent. 

The door unzipped – maybe she'd assumed that Clarke talking meant she was finished changing – and before Clarke could object, she stuck her head in. "I'm—" Her eyes went wide when she realized her mistake. "Sorry," she said, scrambling to back out and zip the door again. "I'm so sorry, I'm—"

Clarke reached out and grabbed her hand, stopping her. "It's okay, Sorry," she said. "Or is it So?"

The woman looked at her, blinked, and in the light of the lantern Clarke could make out her features well enough to know that she was, without a doubt, one of the most beautiful people Clarke had ever seen. After a second of bewildered hesitation, she smiled, and Clarke realized she was wrong. She wasn't one of the most beautiful people she'd seen – she was hands down, without a doubt, _the_ most beautiful. "Lexa, actually," she said. "My name is Lexa."

"That makes more sense," Clarke said. "I'm Clarke."

Another smile, and Clarke forgot that she was still naked, forgot everything but those lips. "You said that already," Lexa pointed out. "I should let you finish—"

"No," Clarke said. "You shouldn't." And she did something she'd never done before, not like this, not with someone she'd met minutes before, but she could have died out there, and it had been so long since she'd had a boyfriend (or girlfriend) that wasn't battery-operated, and she might never see Lexa again. So she reached out and pulled Lexa to her, and kissed her. 

For a second, nothing happened. For a second, Clarke thought she'd made a huge mistake, and she was going to end up back out in the dark and the cold, living her own nightmare version of that show Naked and Afraid. Then Lexa's lips parted against hers, and she kissed back.

Clarke found the zipper of Lexa's jacket and yanked it down even as Lexa crawled fully into the tent, securing the zipper of the door behind her, and Clarke sank her hands into the warmth of the layers Lexa wore beneath it. Lexa hissed as freezing fingers met her skin but didn't pull away. Instead, her efforts to pour warmth into Clarke through her lips redoubled, and Clarke found herself tumbling back onto the air mattress, clothing scattering as she stripped layer after layer from Lexa's body.

"Wait," Lexa said, her lips pressed against the pounding pulse in Clarke's neck. She sat up and yanked the sleeping bag out from under them, quickly opening it so that it was just a blanket, and she draped it over their tangled bodies as Clarke slipped Lexa's panties down her hips, over her thighs, past her knees and ankles and tossed them away. 

They went still. Both of them, in the same moment, stopped, like it had just dawned on them what they were doing, what they were about to do, and were they really ready for this? The only thing they knew about each other was their names... did they need more? Or was it enough for an affair that would be over as soon as the sun rose and Clarke returned to her friends? Would it have been better if they hadn't said anything at all?

"Are you sure?" Lexa asked, voicing Clarke's thoughts. "We don't—"

"I'm sure," Clarke said. "Are you?"

For a second, Lexa's eyes went far away, like she was searching deep within herself or remembering something or maybe trying to peer into the future, but when she looked back at Clarke she nodded. "I'm sure."

"Okay." Clarke slid her fingers into Lexa's hair and drew her in again, and she could feel Lexa's lips curve against hers in that heart-melting smile, and she found herself smiling back as their bodies locked together and their hands began to roam.

Clarke didn't know Lexa, but she learned. She learned that her neck was ticklish, but in a way that made her scrunch her chin to her shoulder when Clarke kissed, only to tip it back, exposing her throat and inviting further kisses as soon as Clarke pulled away. She learned that her breath caught when Clarke traced her thumb around one nipple, and that she moaned when Clarke replaced it with her lips. She learned that her clit was so sensitive after she came that Clarke couldn't touch it, but that after she'd had a few minutes to settle down, it was possible to bring her to climax again in less than a minute. She learned that after the third time Clarke did it, Lexa would roll on top of her, pinning her down and insisting on returning the favor. She learned that it was possible to have orgasms so close together they overlapped, and that she could come so hard she saw stars. She learned that Lexa had a way of looking at her, of touching her, of kissing her, that made her wonder how she could ever have thought, even for a second, that her body wasn't absolutely perfect exactly as it was.

She learned it was possible to feel completely at peace in the arms of a stranger. 

"I thought you were a ghost," Clarke told her, when they were too tired to keep going but weren't quite ready to let go of the moment and go to sleep. "That's why I ran."

"A ghost?" Lexa asked. "Ghosts don't snap sticks when they step on them."

"That... didn't occur to me," Clarke admitted. "Blame Octavia. She's the one who told us about some phantom hiker who haunts the woods." 

Lexa's arms tightened around her, and Clarke could feel goosebumps rising on her skin. "A phantom hiker?"

"Some college girl who slipped and hit her head and died," Clarke said. "Allegedly."

Lexa was quiet, her fingers digging a little too hard into Clarke's back, and Clarke lifted her head to look at her. "What's wrong?"

Lexa shook her head, her eyes shut tight, and Clarke was surprised to realize there were tears beading in the lashes at the corners. "Her name was Costia," she said softly, her voice breaking on the name. "She said she would just be gone a minute, just needed to pee. She said she would be right back. I should have gone with her, but I'd had a lot to drink – we both had – and I didn't feel like moving. I guess I fell back to sleep. I didn't realize until morning... and by then it was too late."

"Oh. _Shit,_" Clarke said. "Lexa, I didn't—I had no idea. I'm sorry—"

Lexa shook her head, opening her eyes and looked at Clarke. "Ever since I spend every weekend in the fall camped out here, in case any other dumb kids decide to go wandering the woods in the middle of the night. No one ever has... until you. And in trying to protect you, I ended up doing the opposite." 

Clarke reached up and tucked back a strand of Lexa's hair. "Maybe," she said, "but it had a happy ending, didn't it?"

"Several," Lexa said, and Clarke laughed, which made Lexa laugh, and then they were both giggling uncontrollably until the worst of the pain had passed.

"So you live around here?" Clarke asked. It stood to reason she would be local if she came out here every weekend, didn't it? But she tried not to get her hopes up.

Lexa nodded. "Everyone else moved away after school. They didn't want to be reminded. But I stayed. I couldn't leave... her. Even though she's not actually here. I didn't know how to move on. For ten years, I haven't..." She trailed off, her fingers tracing lightly over Clarke's skin, and when she spoke again, her voice was barely a whisper against Clarke's lips. "Maybe I'm finally starting to figure it out." 

Clarke pressed her mouth to Lexa's, hoping the kiss could convey all the things she didn't know how to say, like how grateful she was that Lexa had found her, and how sorry she was for the pain Lexa had carried for so long, and how hopeful she was that maybe this wouldn't end with the rising of the sun after all. 

When they pulled apart to catch their breath, it seemed like maybe Lexa had understood at least some of it, because she looked at Clarke and said, "I don't think I need to do this anymore. I think I can finally let go."

Clarke slid her fingers through Lexa's hair as she settled her head on Clarke's shoulder. Clarke turned her head and brushed her lips against Lexa's hair. "Before you retire as the Phantom Hiker for good," she said, "do you think you might have one more haunting in you?"

She could feel Lexa's lips curving into a mischievous smirk where she'd nuzzled her face into Clarke's neck, and her eyes were bright when she lifted her head to look down at her. "What did you have in mind?"

**Author's Note:**

> And check out the awesome moodboard [DreamsAreMyWords](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DreamsAreMyWords/pseuds/DreamsAreMyWords) made for this story. You can see it [here](https://66.media.tumblr.com/83d3fb83ed7ff83fea1c6d6b33d2a7be/8de0e7b3115530e9-ca/s1280x1920/f637664b60bffae11d6d0fff1f25c8f60b27471e.jpg).


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